The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for treating frozen meat such as frozen tuna.
Recently, in accordance with rearrangement or repair of distribution machinery or mechanisms of, for example, a cold chain, fresh meats or foods such as tuna, bonito, beef and pork have been widely distributed. These fresh meats or foods are likely degraded in their qualities over time, so that freezing has been widely utilized for preventing degradation of their freshness. It is required for the frozen meat to be thawed and washed with the quality of the frozen meat being maintained, and the thawing and washing treatments are generally performed by manually immersing the frozen meat into salt water having a water soluble property stored in a tank, or putting them in a container such as a cage and then immersing the cage in the tank to thaw the surface of the frozen meat. During these treatments, undesired materials or parts adhering to the surface of the frozen meat are removed by utilizing a band saw to cut off the undesired portions of the frozen meat and form a quadrilateral configuration.
However, in the conventional treating method described above, in the manualy immersing method, only a small amount of frozen meat can be treated, and much time is required to thaw the same, requiring a large amount of labor by workers and causing physical fatigue. Further, in the method utilizing the cage in which the frozen meat is immersed for thawing, the cage must be handled manually, so that only a small amount of frozen meat is treated in this method, thus providing poor treating efficiency. In view of these facts, the prior art further provides a method in which the frozen meat is continuously immersed in a tank, in which salt water is stored, by means of a conveyer. However, in this method, the frozen meat is manually placed on the conveyer, thus also providing poor treating efficiency.